Defense & aerospace electronics
Airborne electronic hardware certification, digital design verification, and the documentation that has to survive an audit.
1.0Mission
Resource Engineering Corporation produces the evidence that airborne and defense electronics do what their makers say they do. We work to the standard, document the work so it stands on its own under audit, and treat every client’s certification as if our own name were on it, because it is. When the hardware goes into service, the record behind it should be one we are both proud to sign.
2.0Capability
Resource Engineering Corporation is a single-engineer consultancy with roughly thirty years in FPGA and SoC design, verification, and defense electronics documentation. The work divides into three areas that are usually bought separately and often needed together.
DO-254 design assurance for airborne electronic hardware at DAL A and DAL B: requirements capture and traceability, verification planning, elemental analysis, and evidence packages built for stage-of-involvement review.
FPGA and SoC development and verification in UVM and SystemVerilog. Constrained-random and directed testbenches, coverage closure, and high-speed transceiver design. At board level, mixed-signal and PCB design with signal and power integrity analysis.
MIL-STD-498 data item preparation, AS9102B first article inspection documentation, technical data packages, and source approval request packages for defense logistics and engineering support activities.
3.0Certification
A DO-254 program is reviewed at four points. Evidence assembled in arrears costs several times what evidence captured as the design proceeds costs, and it rarely reads as convincing. The table below is the shape of the work.
| Stage | Review | Evidence produced |
|---|---|---|
| SOI #1 | Planning | PHAC, hardware development and validation plans, standards, tool assessment |
| SOI #2 | Design | Requirements and their traceability, conceptual and detailed design data, derived requirements with rationale |
| SOI #3 | Validation & verification | Verification procedures and results, elemental analysis, review and analysis records |
| SOI #4 | Final build | Conformity review, configuration index, accomplishment summary |
For DAL A and DAL B development, FAA AC 20-152A calls for validation activities to be performed with independence. At a small company, where the engineer who designed the logic is often the only one available to verify it, showing that independence internally is awkward to argue. An outside party makes it plain on the face of the record.
4.0Standards
Named here because these are the terms solicitations and capability searches actually use. Hover over or tap a category for what it covers.
The documents a program is held to: DO‑254 for airborne electronic hardware, FAA AC 20‑152A on how the FAA applies it, MIL‑STD‑498 for defense software and documentation, and AS9102B for first article inspection records.
How much rigor DO‑254 requires, set by what a hardware failure could cause. DAL A covers catastrophic failure conditions, DAL B hazardous ones. Both demand the most evidence and independence.
Showing that the hardware does what its requirements say and nothing it should not: every requirement traced to the design and to a verification result.
Formal program checkpoints. PDR confirms the design approach is sound before detailed work begins; CDR confirms the detailed design is ready to build.
The records that let a part be built, inspected and accepted by a prime or the government: first article records, the technical data package, and source approval requests for qualifying a supplier.
How a design is proven correct before it reaches hardware: structured, reusable testbenches built with UVM, and the verification of custom chips.
The languages digital logic is written and tested in. SystemVerilog adds the verification features UVM is built on.
The devices the logic runs on: FPGAs, which are reprogrammable chips, and SoCs, which combine processors and programmable logic on one chip.
Board- and circuit-level engineering: fast serial links, clean signals and stable power across the board, analog and digital working together, and the printed circuit board itself.
The federal industry codes REC is registered under. Contracting officers and primes search by these codes.
Preliminary and critical design reviews, as presenter and as reviewer. A design review is where a certification argument is either credible or it is not, and it is worth rehearsing before the authority is in the room.
5.0Engagement
6.0Contact
Twenty minutes is usually enough to tell whether there is a fit. Bring the program and the standard it has to meet.